United States (US)

A viral and often fatal respiratory disease in the Middle East has taken a turn for the worse and is spreading throughout the region, as well as to parts of Asia, Europe and now the United States. US officials have just confirmed that a man who fell ill after returning from Saudi Arabia about a week ago has Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).

Even in this age of international coalitions, the one arrayed against the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is impressive. In September, more than a hundred and thirty nations voted in favor of a United Nations Security Council resolution declaring the virus, which is rampant in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, a threat to international security and creating the U.N. Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, or UNMEER, devoted to fighting the virus...

When taxpayers pay for research, everyone should have access to it. That’s the simple premise of the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act of 2015 (S.779, H.R.1477), or FASTR. If enacted, FASTR would keep federally funded research where it belongs, in the hands of the public. Under FASTR, every federal agency that spends more than $100 million on grants for research would be required to adopt an open access policy. Although the bill gives each agency some leeway in adopting a policy appropriate to the types of research it funds, each one would require that published research be available to the public no later than six months after publication.

"If Vermont gets single-payer health care right, which I believe we will, other states will follow," Vermont Gov. Shumlin predicted in a recent interview. "If we screw it up, it will set back this effort for a long time.

Most of the $3bn (£1.8bn) that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given to benefit hungry people in the world’s poorest countries has been spent in the US, Britain and other rich countries, with only around 10% spent in Africa, new research suggests...

...Historical analogies like 1914 can be fertile sources of insights about contemporary challenges. One danger, however, is that people can find an analogy so compelling that they conclude that current conditions are “just like” 1914...

As they are winding their terms in office, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden dropped a stink bomb on the health IT industry. Speaking at different events on Friday, January 9th, the President and Vice President both criticized proprietary electronic health record (EHR) vendors as the primary obstacle to the success of their administration’s health care strategy. This is the highest level acknowledgement so far of the serious impact that “lock-in” EHR software vendors are having on America’s medical infrastructure and the ability of physicians to provide medical care.

Stepping into a heated debate within the nation’s intelligence agencies, President Obama has decided that when the National Security Agency discovers major flaws in Internet security, it should — in most circumstances — reveal them to assure that they will be fixed, rather than keep mum so that the flaws can be used in espionage or cyberattacks, senior administration officials said Saturday. But Mr. Obama carved a broad exception for “a clear national security or law enforcement need,” the officials said, a loophole that is likely to allow the N.S.A. to continue to exploit security flaws both to crack encryption on the Internet and to design cyberweapons.

We are all consumers of healthcare and therefore have a vested interest in its future. As an observation, being an outsider to this sector, the healthcare global system looks increasingly broken as the rate of change and complexity increases. At the same time, my empathy is with those people working inside the profession that provide high quality, compassionate healthcare, and support. But maybe more help is needed to handle the relentless challenges and changes at the edge. Read More »

UNTIL recently, the popular way to compare the progress of one country relative to another was to use the size of their economies. America had the biggest GDP (and almost the biggest per capita GDP), so it stood to reason it was the most advanced country in the world.

Microbial genomics leader uBiome is partnering with the University of Oxford to run a pioneering investigation into the possible connections between adult personality and their gut microbiome. Past research on this subject has focused on mice, and this is the first study of its kind on humans. The study is open to adult participants in the UK, the US, as well as other countries. The experiment is led by Oxford University DPhil student Katerina Johnson, who works with leading evolutionary psychologist Professor Robin Dunbar (perhaps best known for establishing “Dunbar’s Number”—the cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships) and respected neurobiologist Dr. Phil Burnet.

SeaGL is the Emerald City's grassroots technical conference for free, libre, and open source software. The 3rd annual conference happens Friday, October 23 and Saturday, October 24 at Seattle Central College. Our keynote speakers this year will be Richard M. Stallman and Shauna Gordon-McKeon.

The JavaOne conference brings together Java experts and enthusiasts for an extraordinary week of learning and networking focused entirely on all things Java. With more than 400 sessions covering topics that span the breadth of the Java universe, keynotes from foremost Java visionaries, tutorials, and expert-led hands-on learning opportunities, JavaOne is the world's most important event for the Java community. Read More »